2025 Ram Ramcharger - Built By The Insane For The Gullible 

I guess you guys have been living under a rock. Diesel-electric Locomotives feature a big engine that turns a generator that powers electrical motors connected to the wheels. They have no mechanical connection between the engine and the wheels and have been around since the 1930's (before most of you were even born). They have PROVEN themselves to be the most efficient and reliable method of transporting mass cargo over the land. To say that this new RAM truck's hybrid system is "new" is just ignorance. The old Chevy Volt had the same system, as do the current Toyota Prius Prime and RAV4 Prime (there are more but can't think of them now). Automotive journalism calls these "Plug-in Hybrids", been around for more than a decade now.

Yes, I agree. Simple, lightweight, small gasoline engines in smaller vehicles with simple standard transmissions would be a hell of a lot more efficient way to go. In 1993, they sold a Honda civic that got 73 mpg(imperial). Why the hell do we need 800 horsepower, 4 ton machines with endless wiring and electronics, self driving and self parking, etc., etc.? Technology has gotten out of control. It's way beyond logical. People would love to have access to simple, efficient, reliable transportation that they could actually afford to buy and maintain.

When I say "Car companies can't get any dumber" they seem to consider it a challenge and then prove me wrong. I agree with you, a mid sized truck with a very efficient 4 or 6 cylinder engine, backed up by a simple 5 speed manual transmission, priced under $20k, with simple analog gauges, manual crank windows and the absolute minimum computer controls and it would sell like hotcakes.

It takes a lot of power to turn a 180kw generator. Also, it won't be running all the time and the ice will be running at the right rpm for efficiency. I like it.

I was asking about mini trucks and what happened to them and I found that manufacturers are claiming they can't make them because of the EPA's C.A.F.E. regulations. It looks to me American manufacturers wanted those regulations the way they are so they could sell the consumer vehicles with higher margins while using the EPA as a scapegoat.

And people wonder why I bought a 1985 Ford F-150, with the 4.9L Inline 6, and a manual trans. The truck is absolutely beautiful in it's simplicity, from the Carter single barrel carb, to the 8.8 rear end.

Think you missed the bus on this one. It's an EV Ram that carries a level 3 charger with it. The idea is that you don't have to pull over and scroll your phone for an hour while a lawnmower engine lets your truck barely sip enough power to make it to the next real charging station, you can just keep on driving normally and still recharge. Power outage? Plug your house into your truck. Jobsite with welders and tools to run? Plug into your truck. Construction office but you want to brew coffee and run the heat or AC? Plug it into your truck. Etc etc.

"Range Extender" is double speak for "we can't deliver on the promise of EV's and we are trying make it functional at least."

Hybrids don't barely justify existing. I drive about 100k per year for work. My Sonata hybrid gets about 55 mpg/700 miles per tank. This is with half city, half highway. I had the same car without the hybrid system, it did 19 mpg city, 38 highway. The hybrid is doing 50+ in the city, and about 60 on the highway if kept to 65 mph. If the government cared about the environment they would push hybrid cars, not EVS. My hybrid has a 1.62 kWh batter, a typical EV can be around 80 kWh. They could make about 50 hybrids for the same lithium/other metals and put no stress on the electrical grid, and no resources wasted on charging stations.

This is what people were asking for... I don't think the average person needs this but it would work well for guys that want to tow long distances. The EV range will make most peoples daily commutes without needing to run the gas engine at all. The v6 generator makes enough electrical power to run it without needing to stop. I own an f150 lightning and wouldn't give up my frunk space for a range extender, home charging is enough 99% of the time. If I was towing long distances regularly I would want this ramcharger mainly because DC charging infrastructure is lacking

Lemme guess, you can only use the v6 if you buy a subscription for it

It's a stepping stone to "You will own nothing and be happy.". He wasn't lying when he uttered those words. I drive a 33 year old Miata with hand crank windows and I feel like it has too much electronic bs on it. My next car will be a 50s or 60s VW. Become ungovernable.

After talking to some people who work for Stellantis, this system is designed to be a prime mover. That is why it uses a 3.6 engine and not smaller 2.0L, 1.4L turbo or such. It needs the high horsepower to run system. This will be amazing, sadly old people will only slow evolution.

Tony, the size of vehicles has inflated (especially trucks) because there is a vehicle footprint factor to CAFE fuel standards, if you have a larger truck, it has to make less gas mileage. If you had a truck the size of a first gen Dakota, it would have to make something like 70 mpg based on current year CAFE requirements, or carry a guzzler tax on the vehicle when sold new

Borla just released a speaker system to make a Lightning sound like a V8 lmao

An Optional engine to go on 500+ miles range makes a lot of sense to me. When you are going around town doing your jobs and commuting, you just leave it in EV. While towing or on the highway, you have the engine juice up the batteries in order to keep moving longer. It makes a lot of sense, displaces the pollution to outside the cities while polluting less due to a smaller displacement but still making big power. Seems logical. The mechanical side also has less failure points because all it is doing is running the alternator. No power train.

As a 30 year Mopar parts employee, I can’t tell you how glad I am I was able to retire before seeing this legacy brand embarrass itself on the world stage. This is possibly the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of. Feel bad for guys still out there working in this industry.

I think they should have gone one step further and just included blown hemi from the hellcat to run the generator :)

9:07 in most hybrids the car can't be driven when the battery is truly dead or missing. These cars don't have a traditional starter and require a working hybrid system and hybrid/main battery to start the engine. The engine is only used as a generator as that is more fuel efficient than letting it power the wheels directly. That is one of the reasons why Nissan e-POWER exists. Volvo xc90 turbo, supercharged, plug-in-hybrid-reliability.

I hear that in England and Australia. Insurance rates for EV's have increased up to 1000% due to the cost of repairs. Some companies have dropped them all together, refusing to cover any EV.

I agree with you totally Uncle Tony, the more they add to a car the more potential problems. This is why I prefer older cars before computers with crank windows. You know back when almost everyone could fix their own car with basic hand tools.

Hi Tony. I'm a Ramcharger engineer. You're correct on the architecture of the REV, but it's called a REPB (Range Extended Paradigm Breaker) which will go around 700 miles on a full charger plus full tank of gas to charge. I would love to give you my opinion of this too, but I don't want to lose my job. Lol

Tony knows as little as we all knew. The busses in my town are gasoline generators powering the electric drive motors. It’s great tech , small engine emissions and big power

Good points here, but I’m assuming they are using the 3.6 because the tooling is already there to produce it and the generator they are turning is high amperage output to keep up with the electricity demand which in turn requires substantial torque and hp to achieve. The point of this truck is it will make the commute for 90% or whatever of people on electric only. So you can drive to work all week on electric only, not having to fire up the engine. Then you can drive up north for the weekend towing a couple atvs without stopping at charging stations because of the OBG. I think its a good idea myself and a step in the right direction. Man is always creating more complex things, it should not be frowned upon. If you think this is complex take a look at a twin turbine helicopter drive / control system.

You can tow a mini tanker and call it the extra range extender for the generator…. That is a great idea!!!

The 3.6 liter V6 can supply power directly to the DC motors that drive the wheels on the Truck and in specific situations avoiding sending the power to the battery. So even though this is different than a traditional hybrid its still a hybrid. This is the similar technology that trains have used for almost a 100 years if not longer. Trains have engines on board that run generators that send power to the electric motors that drive the train. There must be something positive about doing it this way or that would not have been used for so long with the trains.

Mechanic. "Well we found out why you could not charge your battery sir." Customer. "What was it?" Mechanic. "Well, your gas engine would not start because the catalytic converter was blocked. So, you EV would not go because your gas engine wouldn't start, go figure."

The reason we no longer have the S10 is because of the EPA. The smaller the vehicle the higher the milage it needs to get so they made it impossible to meet the standard. Now they just make them bigger so the bar is lower for milage ratings. Makes absolutely no sense.

The size of trucks today is absolute ridiculous. There is a huge need for smaller trucks with a long bed that you don't need a ladder to put things in.

Geez Tone, tell us how you really feel 😂! You’re right, they’re wasting technology on stupid ideas.

You can drive the vehicle still when the battery is dead because it provides enough energy to power the motors AND charge the batteries. When you start looking at the physics of it, you can make it a lot more efficient than an IC truck. You can eliminate a lot of the inefficiencies brought into a regular truck engine by the simple fact that the engine's running environment can remain consistent. No matter how you drive, that engine can run (these are hypothetical numbers) at 2500 RPM, stay at 2500 RPM, and never have to worry about acceleration or deceleration or idling, etc. You have to tune the engine for one point (or very few) and no more. That could simplify the hell out of emissions because in theory, you always know where the engine is going to be running at. You could tune the engine to run at peak power and peak torque at 2500 RPM and not give a damn about what it does at 5000 RPM. That makes everything a whole lot simpler. Another big factor is that electric motors are about 85% efficient, meaning 85% of the power coming out of the battery is put towards mechanical energy, while the other 15% or so is heat, etc. IC engines are at best about 40% efficient, meaning they waste about 60% of the fuel's energy in heat and other non-useful byproducts. That efficient varies by load, speed, etc. But if you make that IC engine run at it's peak performance/efficiency 100% of the time it is running and put that energy into the battery, you are still going to overall be more efficient than with just the IC engine.

PPL/future generations will look back at these past few years as "the time of dumb"

The intent is to incrementally dissuade people from private automobile ownership. They want you immobile.

An 80hp range extender should be enough to maintain a truck at 60mph. 40 for an SUV, 30 for a car. Briggs and Stratton made a concept hybrid car in the 80s that proves this.

If they brought back the dodge D50 Mitsubishi pickup with a modern 1600cc engine, the efficiency would blow that new Rev out of the water and they would sell millions of them

Personally, I think they already have drag the name Ramcharger through the mud just like four did with the lightning

Sounds like Ramcharger is not for everyone, but it sure does seem to satisfy our interests and desires here in rural northern Utah. Glad to see the gas tank capacity is 27 gallons, and for the power outlets, both 120V and 240V up to 7.2 kW output. Besides the CCS1 and J1772 plug inputs (how about NACS?), I would like to see power input interface allowing for connection of solar panels, even while moving.

curb weight is probably 12000 lbs LOL

yes bring back a 4 banger Dakota , 8 speed trans and keep it cheap .

Perhaps it wouldn't be as upsetting if it were called a plug-in hybrid... which is a configuration I like. Around town, it's an electric vehicle, but on a trip, or when towing, it works as well as a gasoline truck.

I totally agree. My 98 6 cyl Dakota I bought new is still on the road in top shape. The maintenance is typical except for the occasional water pump, brakes etc. Nothing major. I drive it 3-4 times more than my 5.9 Cummins Ram, which I dearly love. Perfect size truck. No EV in my future of any type, wait til those poor folks have to by batteries and such in 5 years ...

It's efficient in the fact that it'll be like a locomotive. Edison motors just made a semi truck like that. The engine on the generator runs at a constant RPM to charge the batteries. Maintaining the most efficient RPM you'll have better

I would look at the Chevy Volt Voltec system. This is the same series hybrid system as this Ram Truck. Same as a Prius as well, but the Volt is more advanced. The Volt has a 1.5L just to spin the generator, because the motor that runs the one speed automatic transmission is electric. So just one planetary to worry about, and not two to three planetaries on a gas transmission. I have the Chevy Volt, and I like it. It has a 150k miles on it, and I am having to fix some things on the motor. The beauty here is, I don't need the gas motor for drives under 50 miles around trip. So while I am working on my car, if I need to run to the parts store, I use the car I am working on, being the gas motor. I have never had that ability before. I am not going to run out and buy this Ram Truck when it comes out, but if it works as good as my Volt, I might wait until their prices are worth buying and pick one up on the cheap. If it's good. Being their first version, I have my concerns if they can get the software right. On my Volt, I can tell the car to run in just the battery mode or run the motor that generates the power into the transmission, and that's all that's really involved. So I could literally remove the battery pack and the car is still drivable. The only issue would be losing the Voltec generator/transmission unit. If that goes, you're dead. And it is fast and also powerful with 300 lbs of torque just being a car. It's not up there with Tesla's numbers, but for a commuter, it works really well.

I guarantee fed regs played a big role in this. Any ICE in a vehicle has to meet clean air standards so it's not economical to sell it with a simple charging generator permanently affixed in the vehicle.

Engineered obsolescence is the name of the game. Once it's out of warranty, they want you to trade it in for a new one, that way they can keep making money off of you

What a bizarre "innovation" ! Somewhere in car guy heaven, the Dodge Brothers are weeping.

Maybe the electric vehicle companies could convince the government to put two thin bands of metal in the roads. Then power those up to transmit power via copper pickup shoes on the vehicle. Crazy idea I got from playing with AFX/ TYCO tracks as a kid. 😂😂😂😂

Tony, my guy, this system is literally how train engines work.

Agreed: the first-gen Dakota was the perfect size! I had a '96, way back when...

Gonna keep rolling with my super simple dead reliable slant 6.

Haven't the railroads have used diesel electric locomotives for decades? I don't think the have a battery for power storage either. The electric motor spins when the diesel is burning. The electric motor gives the unlimited torque a train needs. This setup in the ram charger would not have a trans failure. The 3.6 goes 200k miles when driving the wheels. No high revving in this application . Running part time, who knows how long it will go? Battery life is the only thing I see as questionable for reliability. That being said, I'm not getting in line to buy one.

Good stuff! Dodge threw sacred out the window with the 4 door Charger (or as I call it the Diplomat). An onboard generator makes it a hybrid imo. I had a similar idea, but with a proper sized generator used like locomotives.

Perfect truck for many who want an electric truck for everyday use but need the power tow once inawhile. Love that there is no transmission or powertrain that you would see in a typical hypbrid. Love it!

Tony, I must admit that I am 68 Camaro owner since 1980. I love the channel regardless of brand. You bring great this content coming! Drill Baby drill we need to keep all these old girls going! Long live the 60"s.

The Chevy Volt works the same way. Seems to work well with a car. Has around 35 miles of battery range and when battery gets low, very small gas engine starts automatically and maintains vehicle speed while charging with any extra wattage. Hybrid in reverse. The small engine running at a constant speed uses less fuel vs attaching to transmission and varying engine speed. Can plug it in too; some rare people have had issues from not running their gas engine enough and have to worry about fuel tank spoilage.

So it’s very similar to a diesel/electric locomotive. The engine runs a dynamo which creates electricity to power for the electric motors.

I must be the only person who wants a PHEV pickup. I commute 80 miles a day and have toys i need to tow occasionally. I can charge at work for free. Basically free gas, and still be able to take a camper up north. Zero range anxiety. Added bonus. No generator needed for off grid camping. A midsize version of rancher would personally be my next car.

"Complexity is the enemy of reliability." There's definitely something to that. Now...what's more: I'm not sure in the end that they can really say this isn't a hybrid, can they?!

Idk what he's complaining about. First off, the electric charger exaust is not a speaker, and you can't choose whatever sound you want. Second, you don't need everything you need to run the engine. Please, look it up for yourself. It's actually very smart.

Chevy did this 13 years ago with the Volt. Totally reliable.

I really don't understand the logic of your complaint. I think having a large battery that can run the vehicle alongside a gasoline engine that can also run the vehicle, kind of gives you the best of both worlds. One of the awesome things about Tesla's, is they can run their accessories without starting the engine. Things like cameras, built-in Wi-Fi hotspots, and many other things even including the air conditioning to make sure your interior doesn't reach extreme temperatures, can run on battery alone. Not to mention you get the torque of an electric motor without having to worry about running out of juice on long trips.

I totally agree with you Tony. Stellantis is ruining the Dodge/RAM brand. I saw that electric Charger on display last year at the L.A. Auto Show and one of features they were demonstrating was the mock V8 engine sound. I’m still not totally sold on all electric vehicles. The cost of those vehicles and what your electric bill will cost over time. Also California and the United States infrastructure is still not ready for electric vehicles.

This is literally clown world in so many different dimensions. I want NOTHING to do with any of this insanity.

Tony: Essentially what the 'REV' is to trucks what The Diesel Electric was to locomotives. That could be used as a marketing screed similar to Unsinkable and The Titanic. Unfortunately, it is not just Chrysler being flushed it is the country. What's been established is that an industrial country can not be converted into an amusement park managed by carnies.

No way, that's gotta be a Parody story made up by the Babylon Bee or the Onion! I said a while back I'd buy an EV as long as it had a gas generator in the trunk, as a joke!

Remember when companies built what customers wanted, and not what the government demanded?

People are going to eventually wake up the sham of electric cars when they start breaking down, resale value plummets, battery replacement costs, etc.

...I haven't read up on this vehicle to see how it's all being implemented, but if they execute this the way I'm thinking...then it's actually a really good idea...especially for something like a truck where pure EV trucks ranges are shite, borderline useless... ...I would use the 3.6 (or maybe a smaller variant, but I imagine they want to use a tried and true engine that they already have...replace the transmission with a generator large enough to either charge the batteries at a rate that isn't painful (as it would be with a small genset). Now if done right, the engine would be designed to rev at a constant RPM (no attachment to the go pedal) in its peak efficiency. This would be a similar set-up to a diesel-electric locomotive, but as the batteries act as a buffer, there would be no need to rev it up and down. If this is the approach, then a large fuel tank is also not needed as the engine will always be in its optimal RPM and use less fuel per hour. The other positive aspect to using a full sized engine is that it could also be setup to operate like a diesel-electric locomotive and then the accelerator would rev the engine for more or less electric speeds, but due to having to carry a suitable battery the gas tank still would have to be a lot smaller than a gas only truck would have. Now this mode would still have limited range, but as fuel stations are everywhere you aren't restricted to EV charge stations. Again, I am just speculating here...but if I was to design an electric pick-up, this is how I would do it so that the truck isn't useless as a truck like the current offerings are......in fact, up here in Cananda there is a small outfit making a semi just like this and it is about the only way to make anything beyond a car work in the real world.

In battery mode you have around 130 miles of range. Plug up to a charger at home and you never have to touch the gas. If you have to go beyond that range it’s 20/25 mpg. The allure here is for people who want the convenience of not having to fill up for daily commuting but also have the ability to actually pull something a distance. I see value in this platform as an average suburban family who wants EV and a Truck with the ability to do both EV things and Truck things without having to compromise.

UT and Scotty Kilmer need to get together and speak your minds on the electric vehicle culture. That would rock RU-vid.

the thing is that if you're going to be using an internal combustion engine merely to generate power then having it spin a crank shaft is utterly superfluous as you can convert the linear motion directly into electricity like some of these free piston range extenders are doing (and getting about 35% more efficiency out of to boot)

I agree with you. The EPA with their mph standards. The old small truck (4 cylinder) (wheelbase matters too) has to get about 50 mpg. The bigger the truck, the lower the mpg requirement. Like the gas can, the government screws everything it touches.

The Ramcharger air box on my 69 Superbee doesn't sound so cool anymore.

A gas turbine as a range extender would be amazing. Lightweight, small package, high power and the normal problem of gas turbines (idles at 90% of max rpm) wouldn't matter. Plus it would sound like a 1950s vision of the future.

I don't think you've quite got it here, the generator is so big because it's designed to run as it's driving long range, like a locomotive. This can increase the efficiency of the engine by running steady state at peak efficiency. No disagreement about making smaller, cheaper, actual utility vehicles for trucks though. The problem is profit, we've got a system that is so hell bent on profit, which is to say returns for stock owners (short term profits) that it doesn't consider what is actually a good idea. CAFE laws aren't written in a vacuum, all the normal corruption that fills American politics still apply. Larger vehicles are more profitable, and so what carmakers wanted, and what they got are laws that incentivize large vehicles like crossovers and trucks. The amount of trucks and SUVs sold has skyrocketed, and it's for this reason. The Prius Prime is probably the best designed and most effective car to combat carbon emissions. It has a reasonably sized battery that can cover that 90% of driving within a city or town, and then it has a small efficient four cylinder than can cruise it on the highway long distance. The ramcharger does the same thing except that it's a fucking stupidass truck. If your truck has four doors, a short bed, and a high liftover height, I'm sorry, that's not a vehicle for doing work, that's a play toy.

Fun fact: the prototype Porsche entered into the competition for the Tiger 1 tank in World War 2 was a hybrid gasoline electric powertrain. Interesting idea but it didn't work well and had a nasty habit of spontaneously bursting into flames.

I respect everyone's opinion as we are allowed our own opinions and preferences about products like these. To be honest this type of setup has been around and proven itself for some time now and one of these was the Chevrolet Volt which was and still is a nice setup for people that require more distance and time savings with the advantages of a fully electrically driven vehicle. The fact is that for the pickup market where the truck will be used more for what it's meant for with hauling trailers, transporting products in the bed and for work this is probably the best setup possible until battery technology brings us more power density and faster charging. I've said it many times that the best move for pickups is with the onboard generator and at least one company is trying it out. You get the advantages of the fully electric drivetrain with 100% of the power available right away with incredible horsepower and torque. You get the convenience of the onboard generator for situations where stopping to charge isn't practical such as in work trucks or long hauls. I was myself surprised that they used the V6 Pentastar engine for the generator and not a smaller engine like we would figure. I believe this might be based either for the fact that it's been a reliable engine for the most part for them, production cost for these is probably low now as they have been in production for many years and the requirements for driving the 130KWH might require more engine than we might think but this last one is just a guess. You also have to remember that although it needs a cooling system and many of the components that are on the engine while it is used for the drivetrain, these are much smaller when used at a constant speed at low rpm's under a single load that is always the same. There is no transmission, AC system and many other sensors, bells and whistles that would be on a drive line engine as they really don't have the same job requirements. That engine will not be working very hard and requires much less maintenance compared to its drive line equivalent. This setup at least for me makes the best sense to get the best out of a truck with the limitations that battery technology has currently. The fully electric battery only REV on the other hand I believe will end up in the hands of people that use their pickup like the family SUV around town and to haul loads short distances once in a while and end up competing with the Ford Lightening, Riviam and Cyber truck which most have proven to not be very effective for hauling heavy and long range. I think this is the way to go in order to electrify especially the HD pickup lines where battery technology alone is pretty much impossible for the moment. I know many people who owned and still own Chevy Volts and they all love the concept. We'll just have to see how the Ram Charger fairs once it hits the market. I do agree that the best solution engine wise for the generator is the smallest engine available that can do the job. My guess is we'll find out the reason they used the Pentastar V6 instead of something else once the truck comes to market. Anyways that's my thoughts and opinion on the subject.

Okay, Dodge didn't take my steam powered generator idea seriously. I'm proposing a Coyote generator now for Ford's EV Lightning!! ⚡

Unfortunately your 100% wrong on this one one. First of all this has already been been done already in the BMW I3, and Chevy Volt. The reason it’s a generator only… because this way you get the benefit of the electric motors (Monster torque), easy AWD, without the complication of a transmission and extra axles and drive shafts. Why the 3.6… because it already bolted into the chassis and the motor itself is paid for technically… also to provide enough electricity to keep up with the demands of running the truck real time, especially if towing they need a fairly large generation unit…. Lastly this will get x range on EV only but mid 20’s when the motor runs. Thats more efficient than any gas only truck including the 3.6 automatic, partially because the 3.6 will be able to run at a steady efficient rpm constantly.

Hey Tony. I love my 1st generation dakota and you're 100% right that a small truck would be more efficient. Unfortunately the way café works is if you have a bigger truck, it is allowed to be less efficient. I'd look up how width and wheelbase determines efficiency. All government malarkey that won't allow us to have small trucks

Any man that still has a pair does not want an electric truck.

I just want my vehicle to make different sounds during the day, like a rooster ( cockadoodle-doo ), and a cow mooing, and a owl rapping, "Hoo....Hooo.... Hoo," and a cricket squeaking, and a especially nails on a chalk-board.

I hope you think about the advantages of the PHEV a bit more. One advantage was the battery is an accumulator that lets you add power to a smaller engine when you need it for higher peak power, and recovers a lot of energy I was tempted to waste on quicker acceleration. My old Prius was a second quicker from zero to 35 than my wife's PT Cruiser, much quicker and energy efficient in city traffic. One drawback was it could wear out front tires faster because of the extra power it added (258 Lb feet of torque like an old Oldsmobile 215 V8). I calculated Jay Leno was able to get 907 mpg out of his Chevy Volt because he drove it so much on the battery keeping the daily driving to around 40 miles and charging it back up with his solar and (I believe battery system) like my daughter does with her BEVs which require a much larger battery than hybrids, especially non-plugin hybrids require). Those larger batteries take longer to charge. The Ramcharger may have a bigger battery than needed for most PHEVs but that just lets a lot more people find a bigger sweet spot in the percentage of short range driving they do every day (and its easier on the batteries than the smaller PHEV batteries). Jay Leno hit the sweet part to get the most mileage I can imagine, but people I've talked to tended to get just over 100 MPGe with a good percentage around the 135 MPGe average warm climates, the best in the area got 275 MPGe because he used it such a high percentage of time in the pure electric portion of its range. The PHEV batteries seem to be 10 times larger than simple non-plugin hybrids so they have very short pure electric range and require tougher batteries that can handle the charge and discharge rates that are so high because of their small size. They still make more efficient "transmissions" that also recapture energy every time you slow down which allowed me to get a peak 63.4 Mpg on a 44 mile round trip in my used 2001 Prius with 306,000 miles on it. My neighbor just bought a new Kia PHEV which has more than enough electric range to handle the daily drive to and from work and can be topped off every night at by a 110V home charging at what we think will be less than half the cost of gasoline most of the time. Even if they aren't ever charged at home or the free chargers at work, the PHEV battery to me, medium size battery, still makes more efficient energy recovering, mileage and power enhancing sense. See www.gornergrat.ch/en/stories/sustainability-at-the-gornergrat-bahn That shows how the Swiss have been using a mountain train since 1898 that uses overhead cables to power the cog rail cars up steep slopes then recovers enough energy in 3 downward trips to power between 1 and 2 upward trips. One of the best features for me on the old Prius was not having to use the "non-regenerative" brakes anywhere near as much on the trips down mountains (first brake pad replacement on the Prius was at 278,000 miles). I got too good at recovering energy since the smaller hybrid battery could only hold so much energy (perhaps a 1/10th of a typical PHEV battery and 1/100th of a full BEV battery. Watch the slow sales of the Ford Lightening for an indication of market readiness for that size vehicle/battery systems (there may be great bargains for a while), but I'd rather spring for the Ramcharger if I needed a vehicle in that size range (and I'd be willing to use a smaller battery pack than the 170 mile size pack, if that brought the cost down to the best balance I would need for daily driving.

I agree with you Tony on a lot of your points on this. Devil’s advocate, trains are not mechanically connected to their wheels either. If I went ev I would want a range extender too so you have more options. Also it would be cool to build it so it could power your house or job-sites like a mobiel generator. But yes will be a nightmare of complexity if it ever breaks.

It requires a certain amount of energy to move a given mass. You can't defeat basic physics.

I totally agree,would love to see d100 brought back with the 225 slant 6 and over drive no frills

This has been common in hybrids. Basically they expect you to not use the gas engine all the time. And when you do the engine can one efficient rpm range than the whole range a car normally would

Hey Tony have you heard of the new Gas Particulate Filters? GPF if it’s anything like the DPFs it sounds like a giant bomb waiting to happen

CAFE regulations. The bigger the wheelbase, the less mpg's required.

Series hybrids make a lot more sense than parallel hybrids. And I’m certain they chose a 1500 sized truck because it’s the most popular. This truck makes sense to me, I’m looking forward to it.

I love that you are one of the most honest voices on this craze and I use that word exclusively when it comes to the ev world. People just don’t understand that the wool is being pulled over their eyes with this government backed push to ev the world. In my opinion they can Take a long walk off a short pier. This world is doomed. JMO.

That’s like mounting a gas engine on your electric push mower to power it lol.

UT you're missing the point. The truck eliminated a transmission and range anxiety in one shot. Its a far better approach than the REV. I will never buy one or like one but the concept works on paper and in the real world. Diesel locomotives use the same series hybrid setup to travel thousands of miles. Bring that tech to automobiles, people will approach them with more enthusiasm, thats how the market works.

This is a good idea. It's basically a truck version of the chevy volt which was highly successful. I have multiple family members who live those cars. I drive 700 miles a week, live off road and need to tow a trailer. This is the best option because the f150 is too expensive in gas and the lightning can't tow.

Electric propulsion with ice charging capability is the future of pickup trucks because it is better than anything we have now. The available torque coupled with the ability to fill up with gas for longer towing/hauling trips checks all the boxes for people who actually use their truck like a truck. Within a decade this will be the most popular drive train configuration for all full size pickup trucks. Open your mind and get used to it. Better is just better.

As i sit in my 2nd gen 5 speed tacoma i can appreciate its quirks and reliabilty more and more when i hear about these new cars

For where I live this truck makes a LOT of sense.

Ive been wondering for years why they dont make hybrids that have the same basic system that diesel locomotives use. Well, here it is. I think there was 1 or 2 before this but I dont remember what they were. The plug in part works for when you live in a small city, and the gasoline part works for the haulers and suburbs. It will succeed where the lightning fails, gotta give them that much. They are going to find that this will prove far superior than a pure EV as far as trucks go. Personally, I am going to stick to old trucks, they are what I know and what I like.

A fit for purpose rant. Nice work!

so its basically Chevy Volt of pickup trucks with a lot bigger electric range. What's not to like? Use it daily with battery only at fraction of the cost of a gas (especially if you have solar roof) and don't worry about charging when towing. Love it! I have owned Chevy Volt in the past and it was one of the best cars I have owned.